German-American Discourse on Politics and Culture

December 30, 2005

Recently the east German Methodist pastor Ulrich Meisel spoke out about social justice in Germany. There is very little difference, Meisel noted, between the situation he lived through in the DDR and the Federal Republic today - except that people have replaced Marx with a belief in the free market economy. The lessons of the Sermon on the Mount have been discarded, as people worship the accumulation of wealth:

Meisel would be astonished by developments in the United States, where Christianity has been fused with consumerism, and Jesus is worshiped as the Greatest Capitalist. Millions of Americans stream into gigantic mega-churches, where they learn that "it is a sin to be poor" and embracing Christ will bring one untold wealth. The mega-church ministers preach the Prosperity Gospel, where Christ is an investment strategy and a personal life coach whose power can be accessed by believers to improve their finances. Jesus may have driven the money-changers from the temple, but the mega-churches are fantastic cash machines - generating hundreds of millions of dollars.

One of the most successful mega-churches is Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas with more than 25,000 members. On its Web site, the church urges members to Discover the Champion in You - which, of course, will lead to prosperity:

WE BELIEVE…as children of God, we are overcomers and more than conquerors and God intends for each of us to experience the abundant life He has in store for us.

December 29, 2005

The Boston Globe this morning has a front-page article about Jewish immigration in Germany and the rapidly growing community of Jews in Berlin:

Most newcomers are from Russia, Jews seeking a better life in a more prosperous place, but also escaping the anti-Semitism that seethes in many parts of the former Soviet Union. The ''Russian Jews" -- the term embraces the thousands arriving from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states -- are joined by a small but significant wave of young Jews from Israel, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The Westerners flock mainly to Berlin, attracted by the capital's easy-going style and vibrant cultural scene.

Before the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall, Germany's Jewish population stood at barely 25,000, mostly survivors of the World War II era and their offspring. Since then, encouraged by liberal immigration laws, the number has swelled to more than 200,000, according to estimates by the government and Jewish groups. Last year, twice as many Jews -- 20,000 -- settled in Germany as in Israel, according to Jewish groups.

And Berlin is not the only beneficiary of this Jewish migration:

In Cologne, Frankfurt, and Hamburg, small but well-attended Jewish schools and kindergartens have opened over the past several years, intended to expose children to the Hebrew language, Torah studies, and the spiritual ideas behind ritual practices. Attendance often marks the first time Jewish youngsters from the East have received formal religious instruction. A Jewish academy in Frankfurt trains girls and young women in ancient texts.

Still, there is tension and some measure of guilt among Jews that Germany - with its terrible history - would be preferred as a destination rather than the Jewish state of Israel. The Netzeitung has an excellent ongoing series on Juden in Deutschland; recently the online newspaper reported on comments made by Schimon Stein - Israel's ambassador to Germany - concerning Jews "unpacking their suitcases" and calling Germany home:

Also, in this month's Atlantic Times (monthly paper put out by the German Embassy in Washington D.C.) Michel Friedman calls for the Jewish community in Germany to become much more vocal (not available online):

It's true that quantitatively, Judaism in Germnay seems to be a success story. But are the numbers enough to turn around qualitative failings? The coming years will decide what direction the Jewish comunity in Germany takes. It will be a lot of work, requiring a lot of commitment, as well as intelligent leadership. But no accommploishment within the Jewish community can bear fruit if the macrocosm that is the German Republic doesn't aspire to become a global, mulit-cultural and multi-religious society. Because every time a Jewish cemetery is defaced and every time neo-Nazis take to the streets to demonstrate, we end up asking ourselves the same question we did 60 years ago: How can Jews even live in Germany?

Every time German politicians (primarily from the CDU/CSU) reignite the debate over a German Leitkultur, they only succeed in marginalizing not only the growing Jewish community as well as the much larger community of Muslims in Germany. The term Multi-Kulti is everywhere under attack in Germany (and in Europe), but I have to ask: what is the alternative?

December 28, 2005

Susanne Osthoff - the archeologist recently released from captivity in Iraq - caused a great deal of consternation yesterday with her televised interview on al-Jazeera where she seemed to defend her Iraqi captors as "poor people" who were motivated by humanitarian goals. But then she infuriated the German government by announcing her plans to return to Iraq so that she could continue her work and also establish a German cultural center:

“I would have little sympathy if Frau Osthoff puts herself again in danger considering the intensive efforts made by many people to secure her release,” said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Foreign Minister, who headed a team that negotiated her release.

Immediately politicians in Germany have called on Iraq to refuse entry to Susanne Osthoff, should she decide to return to the country she now views as home:

From what I have read about Susanne Osthoff, she no longer views herself as German and has pretty much severed all contact with her family in Germany. She sees herself as Iraqi and intends to share the fate of the people there. Forbidding her entry into Iraq would be wrong, and most certainly would violates the basic principles of a democratic society.

December 23, 2005

The other day German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told the Rheinsiche Post that the United States should shut down the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He said that he could not discern any compelling reason for the US to maintain the prison, and its existence is damaging the image and influence of the US. I'm sure that Donald Rumsfeld - a dedicated reader of the Rheinische Post - was upset at this criticism (Rumsfeld's boss- GW Bush never reads a newspaper) At the same time, Schäuble continued to defend the participation of German intelligence officers in the interrogation of detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere.

We know that the young Turkish-German detainee Murat Kurnaz was interrogated at least twice by German officials. His German lawyer, Berhard Docke, is convinced that these officials shared detailed information about Kurnaz and his circle of acquaintances in Bremen with the US military. Yesterday the UPI correspondent Stefan Nicola put out the best report so far in English about Murat Kurnaz. Read Lost in Guantánamo in its entirety:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. ... On another occasion, the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

Welcome to the hell of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish national born and raised in the northern German city of Bremen, has been locked away without charges for the last four years.

The above account from an unnamed FBI official is included in a Jan. 31, 2005, verdict by Federal District Court Judge Joyce Hens Green, who concluded that the detention of Kurnaz -- classified an "enemy combatant" by a U.S. military tribunal -- was simply wrong. Green argued Kurnaz's imprisonment at Guantánamo was based on flimsy evidence and an unfair trial. The U.S. government appealed Green's decision.

The only good news is that the CIA affair has brought this case out into the open. Docke intends to make a big international push to free his client in early 2006.

December 22, 2005

The international business press is appalled that a German court reversed a verdict and is charging Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann with criminal negligence in his capacity as supervisory board chairman of Mannesmann AG. Ackermann had approved bonuses of $67 million for executives of Mannesmann, after Vodafone had agreed to aquire the Duesseldorf company for 189 billion euros six years ago. The Financial Times has a good chronology of the affair. And it is the FT that is leading the chorus of outraged observers; how dare the court in Germany question the wisdom of the free marketplace! The bonuses are simply capitalism at work and should be celebrated:

Nearly six years after Vodafone acquired Mannesmann, the repercussions continue to reverberate around Deutschland AG. Yesterday's decision by the federal appeal court to order a retrial of six Mannesmann directors over bonuses paid to its chief executive after the takeover battle has further damaged the country's reputation as a place to do business. It also reinforces the view that Germany is a country where distrust of success and nationalist protectionism outweigh the rights of shareholders.

But the FT fails to tell us exactly how the Mannesmann shareholders benefitted from the excessive bonuses paid to the former company executives. Many other commentators, however, welcome the court's reversal and see this as a victory for responsible corporate governance in Germany.

One can see this affair as yet another case of European values diverging from Anglo-American ones. In recent elections and also in rejection of the draft EU constitution, Europeans have shown that they reject the neo-liberal worship of the free, unfettered market economy. In a recent opinion piece in Die Zeit, Professor Fredmund Malik of the prestigious Business School in St. Gallen, writes about the "lost generation of managers" who are trained only in quantitative management techniques (often at MBA programs in the States); they have lost all perspective in the larger social mission of the business enterprise:

Two days after the Lebanese hostage-taker and murderer Hamadi was released from prison in Frankfurt the German archeologist Susanne Osthoff was set free by her captives in Iraq. Immediately the German Bush-Blogs and Hate-Blogs accused the German government of making a deal with the terrorists to secure Osthoff's release. Officials in Berlin denied that any deal took place, and the state prosecutor in Hessen insisted that the release was part of a routine review process: Hammadi had served 19 of a 25-year sentence and was eligible for parole. Today the Associated Pressreports that the US Depts. of Justice attempted to intervene in Hammadi's release:

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales personally asked the German government not to release a terrorist convicted in the killing of a Navy diver, but was rebuffed, the Bush administration said yesterday.

Mohammed Ali Hamadi was freed on parole by German authorities after serving 19 years of a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA plane during which the diver was killed.

The 17-day ordeal riveted the United States and brought Middle East terrorism home for many Americans.

''We did, at senior levels at the US government, contact the German authorities to emphasize that we thought it was important that he serve out his entire term, but we did so with a full understanding that under German law it was highly likely that he was going to be released," State Department Sean McCormack said.

And The Financial Times Deutschlandhas details about Colin Powell's direct appeals to ex-foreign minister Joschka Fischer:

So the timing of Hamadi's and Osthoff's release was purely coincidental. Still, the refusal to cooperate with Gonzales and Powell may reflect the poor image that the US legal system has in Germany in the wake of the CIA rendition affair, the execution of Tookie Williams, and President Bush's warrantless surveillance of US citizens. The US under President Bush has proven over and over that it has nothing but contempt for international law, so what is the upside of cooperating?

December 21, 2005

Bembelkandidat reminds us that Kurt Tucholsky - the muse and genius of Dialog International - died 70 years ago today from an overdose of sleeping tablets, a thousand miles from his beloved Berlin. Tucholsky spent most of his career as a writer defending the Republic he loved, and warning about the forces of reaction that would bury it. Was there ever a writer since Heinrich Heine who was more successful in fusing satire and irony with moral and political outrage? Like Heine, Tucholsky was driven from his homeland, and watched in horror as his most dire warnings were realized in Germany. By 1935, the year of his suicide, Tucholsky knew that his Germany was doomed, but he had the satisfaction of knowing that his books were burned by the forces he despised. After the war, Erich Kästner wrote about the "Berliner who tried to prevent a catastophe with a typewriter."

(my trans. We have the right to hate Germany– because we love it.You can’t speak about Germanywithout considering us: communists, young socialists, pacifists, all those who love freedom; when you think of “Germany” you have to also think of us – and not just think that Germany consists of nationalistic organizations

December 20, 2005

Bush mounted a vigorous defense of his order authorizing warrantless eavesdropping on overseas telephone calls and e-mail of U.S. citizens with suspected ties to terrorists. He contended that his "obligation to protect you" against attack justified a circumvention of the traditional process in a fast-moving, high-tech battle with a shadowy enemy.

Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

{...}One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

The semi-communistic ideology of the Catholic Worker Movement is actually the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Here is an excerpt from their Statement of Aims and Means:

The aim of the Catholic Worker movement is to live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ. Our sources are the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures as handed down in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, with our inspiration coming from the lives of the saints, "men and women outstanding in holiness, living witnesses to Your unchanging love."

Founded in the depths of the Depression by the social activist Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker Movement has always been committed to working for peace and social justice. The movement is absolutely committed to non-violence, so there could never be any connection with terrorist organizations. The most radical aspect is that the members commit to live in "voluntary poverty" : (Day) "By embracing voluntary poverty, that is, by casting our lot freely with those whose impoverishment is not a choice, we would ask for the grace to abandon ourselves to the love of God. It would put us on the path to incarnate the Church's "preferential option for the poor."

Geroge W. Bush enjoys the support of Evangelical Christians and never tires of telling American audiences of how Jesus changed his heart. But it is clear that those who actually follow the life and teachings of Jesus are too radical for the Bush administration and must be monitored as a subversive organization.

As a side note, the Katholische Arbeitnehmer-Bewegung (KAB) has a separate history from the Catholic Worker Movement . The German group does share some of the charitable goals of the CWM, but is much more tied to the Vatican. The roots of the KAB extend back to the middle of the 19th century; today it claims to have 200,000 members in Germany.

December 18, 2005

Americans like to think of their country as a "beacon of freedom" in the world. In fact, the two words that President Bush likes to use in his speeches are "freedom" and "victory". The problem is, those words ring hollow when the President himself has decided to circumvent the law and spy on American citizens. Some in the mainstream media have become alarmed and are warning of a police state:

The White House needs to tell the Pentagon promptly to destroy the records of protesters as required, within three months. It also needs promptly to tell the NSA to return to following the rules, to get the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before monitoring Americans' communications. The idea that all of this is being done to us in the name of national security doesn't wash; that is the language of a police state. Those are the unacceptable actions of a police state.

I feel compelled to share with you what the world looks like from Berlin, where as the dutiful employee at a powerful American NGO, I have witnessed America' soft power in Europe evaporate in the period of roughly four months.

It began with Katrina. It continues with al-Masri (still a burgeoning scandal in Germany for those who have forgotten about it back home). And now this spying nonsense. Sure, we'll continue to score our high-level meetings with Merkel and Steinmeier, and we'll get our chance to lobby them for our niche cause. But it's our niche cause that gives us the access, otherwise we wouldn't have a prayer meeting with these folks. The truth of it is, what I see in the eyes of our European partners is something much more humiliating than I could have imagined: pity. They know we didn't have anything to do with this crap. And they still meet with us anyway. But whatever moral authority our organization carried with it on the basis of being American is completely gone. America is now a nation well beyond law, abusive of its own citizens, indifferent to mass suffering, and rolling along without any regard for, well, anything.

[...]The US has nearly exhausted its soft power in Europe. (Some may argue that Merkel is pro-American, but let's keep in mind she only represents 32 percent of Germany. The rest of the German political class looks at us like we're abused and fearful wives held at the nape by a beast of a husband.)

Telepolis has a good overview in German of President Bush's latest assault on American civil liberties. Meanwhile, (via Atlantic Review) historian Tony Judt, in a recent interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, labels the United States a Third World country. I have to admit that the Bush administration has done irreparable damage to our standing in the world. ( I will write a review of Tony Judt's excellent Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 in a future post).

December 17, 2005

Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer in the history of the universe, was in Berlin today to receive the Otto Hahn Peace Medal. He spent time with the press and posed for the cameras, despite his obvious physical suffering. Focusdescribes his condition as "shocking":

Undoubtedly it took courage for Ali to make the exhausting trip to Berlin, but being honored for promoting peace is obviously important to the great man. Yes, it is sad to see the champion so ill, but we will always remember his glorious triumphs in the ring:

It is doubly sad how the great fighter - revered by millions around the globe - is being attacked by some neocon commentators in his own country.